Hamnet

“What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any time, like a thief or brigand.”There is a strange totality knowing that the end was told in the beginning. Knowing the outcome, before it arrives. Hearing a story told before it happens, but crying once it makes its final bow. This is the schema of Hamnet, from the descriptions, from the opening onscreen line, “Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact, the same name…”. Chloe Zhao links the early death of Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, to the creation of his most captivating play Hamlet — the story assumes an impending tragedy, but reflects an ode of life. Life is bound to death, upon conception is the duality of fate. The tragedies of life demand a reprisal; lessons of honoring, and resurrection carry us through the power of processing. Prioritizing cherishing memories over lamenting destiny's shifts love beyond physical existence, ensuring its eternal continuation. The film Hamnet is deeply nestled into nature, seen through Agnes Shakespeare’s orientation around the wilderness, and natural ailments. Her deep-rooted connection to the natural world represents more than an allegory of mother nature, but evolves into a symbol of the cycle of life — in all its bountiful love and procreation, and all the foreboding, banal darkness. The many scenes of nature being incorporated into the mannerisms and practices of Agnes illustrates our relationship with this cycle — how we bask in the shared breaths of life, and how we shudder and weep under the gaze of the very same deathly fate. This film has one of the most wrenching instances of sacrifice, bravery. To care and hold such compassion for a person is to be ‘brave’ in the face of death, and alter its course. From the beginning, Chloe Zhao’s film revels in the many injustices that percolate through the barriers of moral decency; dejection of love, disparities of wealth, predation of innocence — all components used in transforming these personal afflictions into eternal art, thus, love. Jessie Buckley displays this transformation — in the most moving performance of the year, of the century, the suppression of femininity, the overbearing love of motherhood, and the grief of life. With each scene, she transcends the script into scenes of individual pain, to universal tears; there was not a moment in which the whole theater wasn’t tearing up along with her. Will solidify herself as a personal contender for impeccable, touching, utmost effective acting. Hamnet, both as a character and as a cohesive piece of film, teaches us the many ‘What if’s?’ of life, all the promises, relationships, and people who were cut short from the world, from us. The unfulfilling nature of life is what stalks people, it is what manifests into grief. The potential of life is snipped short by the cynical reality of our mortality. What if we saw one another once more? What if we could share a love one last time? What if we could see each other again? But these pining questions are just empty cries; the finality of existence is what prevents such questions from being actualized. Zhao’s Hamnet counters this conclusion, the loss of life shan’t be the end of existence, but only the beginning. With all the pain we harbor surrounding these blunt fates, it is necessary to reach a catharsis. It is necessary to take the grief that commands strict misery, and bridge it towards eternal expression and healing. To honor is to eternalize, and the creation of Hamlet is the representation of visualizing potential — it beckons healing of not personal death, but fate as a whole.